Darker Days
by Voidbarker
Summary: Even the skeleton family has bad days. (Crossposted to AO3 under the same username and title.)


Today was a worse day than yesterday, he'd give it that.

His alarm had already gone off, and it had been going off for what felt like at least five minutes, by now. He still hadn't bothered to get up and turn the damn thing off. A hand reaches out, patting the area where his alarm clock would be, until he finally manages to turn the near-deafening thing off.

The scientist remained laying in the worn bed for a moment, pulling the duvet to cover himself up a little more. There was a mild draft through the house, as he hadn't kept the heating on all night. (That would give Grillby a run for his money as a fire hazard.)

A little more sleep couldn't hurt, could it? He was vaguely certain that he'd called Asgore and told him that he was taking a day off, much to the King's shock. Doctor Wingdings Gaster, taking a day off? It's almost like the moon was blue and that pigs could fly. Technically, he'd not had an off-day in at least a year.

Yet, now, the doctor allowed himself to feel like crap for once.

* * *

Papyrus sat in his room, waiting for his father to tell him to get dressed and get going off to school. The room had a comfortably woolen carpet, a racecar bed, a table, and a shelving unit. On a wall, sat a poster, and several of his drawings. The poster was dyed black, with a skull and crossbones in the middle. His dad had thought it looked like something he'd enjoy, and enjoy it he damn well did. It looked rather nice on the wall.

On the table, lay a growing collection of action figures. Sans kept buying them for Papyrus, despite his insistence that he was too old for them now, and he could buy them himself if he wanted some. His brother simply responded with a wink, and something about him collecting them for aesthetic purposes if he didn't want to play with them.

Something that he'd occasionally do, that both his father and brother had once walked in on (and promptly exited the room), was play with the action figures. The seven year old skeleton enjoyed creating stories of raging fires and calmed seas, tales of old and fables of pirates that roamed the lava lakes of Hotland, and the darkened marshes of the Waterfalls. He might have had an action figure of a princess somewhere, living in the icy depths of Snowdin's pine forest.

On the shelving unit, there lay several books of all shapes and colours. They told stories, but not many had stories that Papyrus was personally interested in. Right now, he was somewhat interested in pirates. The fishy kid at school looked like a pirate with her medical eye patch. She'd told him that the eye patch was needed because she had an accident and had to get the eye removed. Once the skin around the empty eye socket recovered, she'd be able to use a different eye patch. He felt his face split into a grin as he remembered her.

Speaking of the fishy kid at school, shouldn't he be in school right now?

Papyrus gave a sigh. He was bored, and there wasn't much else to do in this room. The little skeleton was someone who preferred to keep things orderly, if possible. Unlike his father's method of orderly chaos, and his brother's messy room.

Without a single word spoken to himself or to his room, or even to the empty air that was in the room, Papyrus turned the doorknob and stepped out of the room.

The landing had the same pattern as the lower floor, wavy lines of a desaturated purple and a light blue. The purple had once been rather vibrant, and the blue was once the colour of the sky. In some places, it still looked almost as good as new. Years and years of usage had rendered the purple to darken to a lilac colour, while the blue was more of a cloudy sky.

The walls were the same maroon colour as always, and a picture of a bone hung from a tack that had been embedded in one of them.

Maybe he should check on Sans? That sounded like the best idea, as he had no idea if his dad was simply running late. Sometimes Dad would stay in bed for a little too long, and end up having to exit the house in a rush. Something about executive dysfunction, he mentioned. That was fine, Papyrus could definitely wait for his dad to get up.

The skeleton toddled off into his older brother's bedroom, knocking at the door with a quick rat-a-tat-tat. Not too loud, but not to the point where you had to strain to hear it.

* * *

Sans cherished days like these, with all of his SOUL.

Days that allowed him to rest in bed without much of a care in the world, without worrying about school or homework*.

He allowed himself to laze about in his bed, his eyes shut and within a blissful slumber, a lazy grin on his face. Truly, this was the grin of a smartarse who never really had to apply himself to his work. He had the smarts to get around doing work, whenever possible.

At least, until he heard the knock on the door. The skeleton gave a discontented grumble, and rolled over. The warmth of the blankets was already seeping into his bones, which makes it even harder to get up on this specific morning.

The knocking gets a little louder, before the doorknob turns. Either Papyrus is going to come in to yell at him for being lazy, or Gaster had taken a day off for once.

His little brother walked into the room, tapping his fingers together. It was painfully obvious that the youngest skeleton wanted something. At least, until he spread out his arms, the universal gesture for a hug.

Sans blinked for a few moments, before dragging himself out of bed - with the blanket included - and wrapping the blanket around Papyrus. The younger mumbles a few words, but they're too quiet to hear.

"bad day, huh?"

His lowercase muttering seemed to jar Papyrus out of his thoughts, and he responded in Wingdings 2.

[DO YOU THINK I'M A BURDEN?]

"nah. it'd be rude of me to think that, wouldn'it?" A light chuckle from the older, and he rose to his full height of 4'. Truly, a very intimidating figure if you were an ant. "do you wanna go find dad?"

[YES.] The answer is much quicker this time, almost too fast for him to catch.

"alright. judging by how it's about... 9 a.m., i'd reckon he's still in his room."

And off to the father's room they went.


End file.
